An Iona Day

Last month I had the opportunity to spend a day on Iona. I wanted to revisit a few favourite spots and see something I'd missed on previous visits: Clach a Choire Ì, the Ringing Stone of Iona. Once ashore, I walked the road to the north, continued past the busy abbey, then made my way to the Duchess's Cross: a memorial to Elizabeth Campbell, the first of the three wives of the eighth Duke of Argyll. 

Halfway between the cross and the shore, a massive, flat-topped boulder lay at the edge of a field (NM 2892 2491). This chunk of Ross of Mull granite, carried here by ice long ago, is sometimes called the refectory stone, supposedly for its use as a table in the early monastery. James Bonwick, in Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions (1894), relates that the stone has two names: ‘Moel-blatha’ and ‘Blathnat,’ and it is just one of the multitude of stones associated with St Columba:

St. Columba had a reputation for stones. There is his Red Stone, his Blue Egg Stone in Skye, his Blue Stone of Glen Columkillo, his stony beds of penitence, his Lingam Stones, which worked miracles. He was born on a stone, he was sustained in famine by sucking meal from the Holy Stone of Moel-blatha.

Moel-blatha is also mentioned in Edward Trenholme's The Story of Iona (1909):

   The great tabular glacial boulder lies between lomaire an Achd and the Sound, and Skene has pointed out how well it answers to a stone which some old Irish documents say was in the refectory of St. Columba's monastery. One scribe's preface to St. Columba's great poem Altus Prosator speaks of "the stone that is in the refectory in Hi; and the name of that stone is Moel-blatha, and luck was left on all food that is put thereon." 
   The stone survived the monastery, for the scribes who say "it still exists" wrote in the eleventh century. It was so remarkable that it had a special name, which is considered to mean "flat stone of division." The scribes mention the stone in order to relate how Columba composed a certain hymn, Adjutor laborantium, while carrying a heavy sack of oats, taken from off the stone, to the mill. Everything fits the stone, which is still to be seen in Iona, near the spot which there are independent reasons for regarding as the site of the first monastery. The refectory which enclosed the stone, to serve as a table or sideboard, was no doubt a wood and wattle building of the old Irish kind.

After a look at Moel-blatha, I walked a quarter mile north until I came to a gate on the east side of the road. I went through it, then made a gentle descent across a grassy field to Port na Fraing. My destination was easy to spot: Clach a Choire Ì, the ringing stone of Iona; a large boulder with a cup-mark near its top (NM 2911 2527). Like its better-known cousin on Tiree, the stone can be made to sing out a high-pitched metallic tone. The boulder is one of several lithophonic stones in Scotland. In addition to Tiree’s (NM 0268 4869), there is one near Ballater (NJ 2998 0157), and the ‘Iron Stone’ north of Huntly (NJ 5316 4563). 

A stone, conveniently set in the cup-mark, can be used to make the stone ring. (The best place to strike is just below the cup.) After some feeble attempts to play the stone, I returned to the road, then made my way to the top of Dun-I. It's an easy 100-metre climb, and I was fortunate to find the top deserted, as it's usually swarming with tourists. 

I wandered over to the nearby knoll where I scattered some of my mother's ashes in 2018, then took a seat next to Tobar na h-Aoise, the Well of Youth (NM 2843 2529). It is a triangular pool set below a large outcropping of bedrock. It’s said your youth will be restored if you touch the waters as the first rays of the morning sun fall. (I had a beer instead and felt quite restored.)

Once back down at the road, I followed the path to Cobhain Cuildich, the Secluded Hollow of the Hermit’s Cell. To find the path to the cell, you enter the gate to the MacLeod Centre, walk 150 feet west, then veer off to the right. The route is vague at times and very boggy, but keep heading west, and in half a mile you'll come to the Hermit's Cell.

The cell is a circular foundation of stones, eighteen feet in diameter, with an opening for a vestibule—all that’s left of what may have been a substantial beehive cell. Behind it is a large rock outcropping, with the walls of a sheep fank encircling its base, probably built from the stones of the cell. This may have been the monastery’s place of retreat, described as being ‘amongst the bushes, remote from men and meet for prayer, where Columba went to pray one day, and beheld hosts of demons fighting with darts (lightning) in the sky.’

I decided to keep going west to the coast. There was no path, just more soupy ground and heather. An hour's bumble through the brush led to Port Ban, a stunning pocket beach of white-shell sand. There were no golfers about, so I took an easy shortcut across the 12th hole of the course to reach the machair above Camus Cùl an Taibh, the Bay at the back of the ocean.

I was now back in the land of the tourists and joined a mob of a hundred or so for the ferry back to Mull. Next stop: Caibeal Mheomhair, the Star Chamber of Mull.

Texa - 2026

The mob of angry Texans fled in a panic. Word had gotten around that a new sheriff was in town, for a little while, anyway. I was the only passenger on the eight-seater RIB as skipper Gus throttled back the massive outboards. Islay Sea Adventures, based in Lagavulin Bay, usually uses the boat for sightseeing and fishing trips, but they will run you over to Texa if you give them advance notice. Texa’s only permanent inhabitants, a shaggy herd of feral goats, had been calmly grazing away on the tall, succulent grass around the chapel ruin. The roar of the boat made them look up, and in a panic, they scampered away.

I was set ashore on a small, concrete platform, the meagre remnant of an old jetty. From there, it was an easy climb to Cill Mhuire, the fourteenth-century chapel of the Virgin Mary, which may have replaced an older structure. The name Texa, is odd, as it is the only Scottish island I know of with an X in its name. The X comes from an anglicisation of older names. One old name comes from a possible mention of the island in Adomnán’s Life of Columba. In Book 2, Chapter 13, Adomnán describes how St Kenneth regained his staff, which he’d lost on Iona:

On his departure the staff was found on the shore, and given into the hands of St. Columba, who, on his return home, brought it into the oratory, and remained there for a very long time alone in prayer. Cainnech, meanwhile, on approaching the Oidechan island suddenly felt pricked at heart at the thought of his forgetfulness, and was deeply afflicted at it. But after some time, leaving the vessel, and falling upon his knees in prayer on the ground, he found before him on the turf of the little land of Aithche the staff which, in his forgetfulness, he had left behind him at the landing-place in the louan island (Iona). He was greatly surprised at its being thus brought to him by the divine power, and gave thanks to God. 

The ‘Oidechan island’ that St Kenneth passed could refer to Texa, where ‘Oidech’ is a corruption of ‘I teach’, altered over time to Teach-saigh, House island. Another possibility is that ‘Oidechan’ may stem from the Gaelic Oideachd/Oideachas: a seminary. If there was not a seminary here, there was certainly a monastic settlement of some sort. John of Fordun, writing in the fourteenth century, mentioned the island as Insula Helant texa, ibique cella monachorum: Island Texa, with a monastic cell.

Texa is named ‘Ylen Teghsa’ in Joan Blaeu’s Atlas of Scotland (published 1694). Texa is shown in the correct position, opposite Dunivaig Castle, along with the symbol Blaeu used for a church. But its name is written quite far from the island, and for a very good reason. It allowed the mapmaker to use an extra-large font to indicate the island’s importance.

Contemporaneously with the time of Blaeu’s map, the island was visited by Father Cornelius Ward (Conchobhair Mac an Bhaird), a Franciscan missionary from Ireland, who was intent on restoring the Catholic faith in the Hebrides. His work on Texa was easy. On his arrival in 1625, he discovered that out of the population of twenty-nine, twenty-three were Catholic, and he proceeded to reconcile the remaining six. From Texa, Ward sailed north through the Hebrides, bringing 677 people back to the faith on Islay, 212 in Jura, over 300 on Colonsay, an equal number on Mull, 200 on Eigg, eighteen on Rum, eight on Canna, over 600 in South Uist, and nearly 800 on North Uist. Ward’s success came at a cost. While in London in 1629, he was arrested, tortured and imprisoned for two years.

I found the only visible remnant of the Catholic faith on Texa at the edge of a field above the landing. Measuring thirty feet by thirteen, the chapel was surrounded by a low, oval enclosure wall, a hundred feet by sixty. Abutting the edge of the enclosure was a smaller round enclosure, sixty feet in diameter. It is called a burial ground on the OS map, but there were no visible tombstones.

The carved stones of Texa still known to exist were removed in the 1880s. Three are at the National Museum of Scotland (NMS) in Edinburgh, and one is in the outdoor display at the Museum of Islay Life in Port Charlotte. The most impressive of the four is the shaft of a cross that once stood atop a mound near the chapel, proclaiming the site’s religious significance. The upper portion of the metre-tall shaft depicts the crucifixion, but it is so severely worn that only the lower part of the cross is visible. Carved there is a panel of Latin text that translates as: ‘This is the cross of Reginald, son of John, of Islay’.

Aside from the chapel and burial ground, only one other historic site is shown on the OS map: Tobar Mhoireig, St Mary’s Well. The map shows it 700 feet northeast of the chapel, and as I crossed the soft turf to the east, I came upon something fantastic. In a small field above the shore lay a set of circular stone foundations, the outline of what could have been a triple beehive cell; a set of ruins similar to the triple cell I’d seen on the island of Flodaigh in Loch Ròg.

The cell makers had chosen the site well, as it was sheltered from most wind directions and only 200 feet from the freshwater streaming out of Tobar Mhoireig. The well was three feet in diameter and lay at the base of a low cliff facing the shore. It was full—the overflowing water trickling down to the sea. And it was readily apparent that the Texans slake their thirst here, as the muddy turf near the well was scarred with hoof marks. I was not tempted to imbibe.

After a wander around the island, I made my way to the only inhabitable house on the island. Its last resident had been a man who’d come for six weeks. He came to lose weight, and it would be an easy place to do that. No fish and chips, no steak pie, no pubs . . . sounds like purgatory. Even worse, every day he’d be faced with the temptation of the Laphroig Distillery, standing in full view across the sound. I was tempted to enter the house, but the door was fastened with an elegant, braided rope lock; one that would take a great effort to untie, and an even greater effort to retie. Scattered about the landscape near the house were the low ruins of six old dwellings; once the homes of thirty people, now the domain of goats.

I still had thirty minutes before pickup. In my younger days, I would have spent that time rushing to the high point, as it was only half a mile away. But instead of rushing, I made my way to the beach near the landing. At its head was a large boulder with a small spring issuing from beneath it. As with Tobar Mhoireig, the trickle of water flowing to the sea was a bit murky, so I was not tempted to drink. But there was something that made me quite thirsty: the sight of the Laphroig distillery a mile across the sound. 

With thoughts of a sea-smoky dram dancing in my head, I snoozed until woken by the sound of the approaching boat. As we motored away, the goats eagerly galloped down from the high ground to seek out the succulent grass near the chapel.

Book Launch in Portree

A month from today, the Islands Book Trust will be hosting the launch of my next book, Thirty Years of Adventures in Search of the Past: Skye and the Small Isles. It will be held at the Portree Library on Thursday, August 20, at 6 pm. If you are on Skye at the time, I hope you can make it. The book tells the stories of three decades of journeys to Skye, the Small Isles, Raasay, Rona, and the islands of Gavin Maxwell.

Càrn Bàn & Kenny MacNeill - Gigha

After a snooze on the Singing Sands of Gigha, I started back to the road. After a brief visit to the north pier, which sits precariously on beach boulders, ready to topple at any minute, I noticed a waymarker for the ‘Northern Loop—Càrn Bàn’ path. Long ago, I’d read about Càrn Bàn, a once notable site of Neolithic tombs. I’d also read a description of how to get there, a route that sounded quite difficult. But in the intervening years, a network of walkable and bikeable paths has been created on Gigha, and I was delighted to see that this one went to the site. The path started with a boardwalk over a section of marshy ground, which ended just before the two stunning white-sand beaches of Tràigh nam Beachan. 

A few minutes later, the path came to the Neolithic chambered tombs of Càrn Bàn.

Càrn Bàn is mentioned in John Mercer's Hebridean Islands (1974).

The most evident early Metal Age innovation was to change from collective burial in chambered tombs to individual interment  in small stone-lined graves, with or without a protective cairn of stones. Carn Ban on the N. Gigha coast is a good if now denuded example. First dug into in the eighteenth century, the cairn was then  said  to  be  about  50  feet  across;  it  probably covered seven short cists—average size about 4 feet by  28  inches,  by  20 inches  deep—all  orientated NNW.-SSE. and with much white quartz, often part of early ritual, included in the packing.

TS Muir, in Ecclesiological Notes on some of the Islands of Scotland (1885), describes the site as it was over a hundred years ago.

Still keeping on in nearly the same direction till nearing Cairnban Point, in the north-eastern extremity of the island, you are brought to another place of sepulture, which I rather think the antiquary will regard as the most interesting spot in Gigha. It was almost dark before I got to it, though even with plenty of light I doubt whether I or any one could have seen much to have made anything out of, without no end of going down into holes and digging therein. Things of the kind are not easily described; but conceive scattered over a weird-looking plat so many cyclopean-like cells, cromlechs, kistvaens, or whatever else or otherwise you may call them, each more or less slantingly roofed over with a ponderous slab, and showing, in two or three of them, appearances of passages in all likelihood to underground chambers.

One remaining tomb did have a ‘ponderous’ slab, but many of the stones from the other tombs, along with those of the fifty-foot cairn that covered them, have been taken over the years for building material. You can see them now embedded in many of the field walls in the area. Scattered around the remaining tombs were several large, white quartz stones, thought to have been placed in them as symbols of wealth for the dearly departed.

The path turned southwest from the tombs to traverse the shoulder of Cnoc an t-Sabhail (Barnhill). After cresting a series of low ridges, the path dropped down to the road.

As I started marching south on the tarmac, my weary legs, used to the mushy ground, began to complain. I had seven miles under my belt and had another four to get back to Achamore. So when a car came by, I stuck out my thumb. All I got was a smile as they zoomed by. I realised I had been pointing my thumb towards the sky, so they probably thought I was just giving them a thumbs-up. Five minutes later, another car came by. This time, I held the thumb a bit more horizontally and was given a ride.

As we motored to Ardminish, I took advantage of the encounter to ask a question. One of the things on my Gigha agenda was to meet up with Kenny MacNeill, who had taken me to Càra in 1996, exactly thirty years ago (see Chapter 3 of Firth of Clyde to the Small Isles). I’d corresponded with Kenny in 2021 to ask permission to use a photo of him (below), and I was hoping to see him. But when I asked where he lived, the answer was startling. I was told he’d passed away unexpectedly a few months earlier and was laid to rest in Kilchattan Cemetery. The following photo shows Kenny taking me to Càra in 1996, and on his way to Cara in 2017 (the 2017 image courtesy of Christina Macauley).

Once back at Ardminish, I made my way to Kilchattan. There was only one new grave, covered with dried-up flowers. I assumed it was Kenny’s, as it was marked by a worn tombstone for a MacNeill who died at sea in 1949.

Later that evening, as the sun started dipping into the western sea, I was snoozing on the bench that crowns the viewpoint above the west end of Achamore Gardens. Seemingly out of nowhere, two children, a boy and a girl, dashed by. They stopped at the verge of the hillside, as heavy brambles prevented running down the hill. Only then did they notice me and say hello. Their mother showed up a minute later and apologised for intruding on my nap. “No bother”, I said. “I’m glad for the company”. I asked if they knew Kenny. All three immediately said yes, and the boy mentioned it was always exciting when Kenny brought out his nautical charts.

Rest in peace, Kenny MacNeill. Though I did not know you well, you gave me, and many others, memories of Gigha and Càra that will last forever.

The Singing Sands of Gigha

It was in the spring of 1996 that I first crossed the Doirlinn that connects the small island of Eilean Garbh to Gigha. It is a beautiful place to spend a few hours: a 500-foot-long tombolo, cradled by beaches on each side. The following photo shows these 'twin beaches' on that spring day in '96.

During a stay on Gigha last April, I made a long walk from Achamore to the north end of the island. It was a blazing-hot day, and I started looking for a place to take a snooze around noon. A mile north of Tarbert, a roadside sign brought back that memory from 1996: 'Eilean Garbh Beaches'. My search for a place to snooze had ended. It was time to live in the past—time for a nap on the twin beaches.

Unlike three decades ago, a well-made path led down to the tombolo. From the end of the path, I crossed a short stretch of grassland to the north beach. It was there that things got interesting.

Something I've always done since a visit to a well-known beach on Eigg in 2006 is to scuff my feet whenever I cross a beach. I had not done this when I was on Gigha in 1996, but I did it this time. Usually, nothing happens. But something extraordinary happened this time. A squeaking, almost musical sound arose from the sands with every scuff: the unmistakable sound of singing sands. I’d done a bit of research on singing sands a few years ago and had come across a list of the 33 known musical beaches of the UK and Ireland. Gigha was not on the list. The nearest listed sands lie twenty miles to the west at Tràigh Bhàn on Islay (see the October 19, 2019 post).

The northern beach of the tombolo is not named on the map. But after Elizabeth came here during a cruise on Hebridean Princess, it became known as the Queen’s Beach. I don’t know if the queen made the sands sing, but she may have taken a nap. For a map of the singing sands of the UK and Ireland, see the July 23, 2024 post (which I now need to update). 

After an hour-long snooze on the beach, I made it sing again as I started back to the road. After a brief visit to the north pier, which sits precariously on the shore, I noticed a waymarker for the ‘Northern Loop—Càrn Bàn’ path. Long ago, I’d read about Càrn Bàn, a once notable site of Neolithic tombs. I’d also read an old description of how to get there, a route that sounded difficult. But in the intervening years, a network of walkable and bikeable paths has been created on Gigha, and I was delighted to see that one of them went to the site. Next time we'll follow that tempting path to see what's left of the tombs of Càrn Bàn.

Four Winds Lookout Tower - Islay

I returned to Islay last month to spend the better part of a week. The highlight of the trip was the place where I stayed, the Four Winds Lookout Tower. It is a former coast guard facility that has been renovated into stunning, self-catering accommodation. Standing high above Pornahaven, at the tip of the Rinns of Islay peninsula, it has an expansive view overlooking the lighthouse island of Orsay and the far-off coast of Ireland. In the first photo, the tower is visible on the hill above Portnahaven.

The view from the top-floor bedroom was breathtaking. It was like being in the wheelhouse of a ship at sea. Centerstage was Orsay Island, home to the Rinns of Islay Lighthouse. Each day's end was marked at twilight, when the light started flashing every five seconds; flashes that continued until daybreak.

The ground floor has a fully equipped kitchen and a combined shower/toilet room, another echo of a ship at sea. 

The top-floor bedroom was reached by a near-vertical ladder, one that reminded me of the steep stairs down to the cabins on many of the ships I'd been on over the years.

Every night but one was a peaceful paradise. On the third night, I was woken by a loud banging on the door. Wondering what the hell was going on, I climbed down the ladder and looked out the door. I found myself face-to-face with a dozen sheep, their noses pressed up to the tower, who'd found a place to shelter from the wind.

Four Winds is truly unique, and I hope to return someday. Adding to the appeal, a friendly pub, An Tigh Seinnse, is a short walk away.

For more information on Four Winds, the website is: https://www.fourwindsislay.co.uk/

Private Roy Muncaster - R.I.P.

While on Islay last week, I made my way to Kilnaughton Military Cemetery, a mile west of Port Ellen. It's a small cemetery, with around a dozen tombstones. Many tourists pass by the cemetery without even knowing it's there, when they drive the hilly single track to the Mull of Oa. For, it is on the Mull that you'll find the American Monument: a sixty-foot-tall stone tower that commemorates the Otranto disaster off the shore of Kilchoman in 1918 and the sinking of the Troopship Tuscania by the UB-77 earlier that year. (For more on the Otranto, see the October 11, 2019 post.)

The Kilnaughton Military Cemetery lies above the beach, northeast of the burial ground that surrounds the fifteenth-century ruin of the chapel of St Nechtan. The only American still interred in the military cemetery is Roy Muncaster, a Private in the US Army, who perished when Tuscania was torpedoed. Before joining the Army, Muncaster had been a forest ranger in the Olympic Mountains of Washington State, where the 5,910-foot-high Muncaster Mountain, fifty miles west of my home in Seattle, is named for him. With the lone exception of Muncaster, all the American victims of the Otranto and Tuscania disasters were returned to the States or buried in the American Military Cemetery in Surrey. Muncaster’s parents wanted him to remain where he died, here on beautiful Islay.